Ms Guinness is coming from dairy co-operative Fane Valley Group, where she was director of corporate services.

Stan McIlvenny, chairman of the Warrenpoint Harbour Authority, said: "The board is delighted to have secured the appointment of Clare Guinness, who has a wealth of corporate experience across multiple jurisdictions.

"We look forward to working with Clare as she leads the development of the port's strategy, and building on its growing contribution to the local economy."

Ms Guinness has also held senior roles with Bank of Ireland, where she spent 17 years working within the property and business banking divisions across Belfast, Dublin and London. Our ports have seen a 5% rise in the volume of goods passing through in the last year at 26.6m tonnes. Belfast Harbour dealt with two-thirds of the total. Warrenpoint made up 12%, followed by 10% through Larne.

Total freight traffic through UK ports in 2016 was 484m tonnes compared to 496.7m the previous year.

A total of 458,664 non-freight vehicles passed through our ports in 2016. Of that, Belfast accounted for 70% of the traffic.